Sampo Bank traces its origins back to 1887, Originally the Finnish state-owned Post and Savings Bank, which accepted deposits from the public at its post offices. In 1999, the state-owned bank was merged with Sampo PLC's insurance business to form the Sampo Group. The banking unit was later acquired by Danske Bank in 2007, while the Sampo Group retained the insurance business. [1]

In March 2008, Sampo Bank was migrated onto the parent's IT platform. This temporarily caused both security and availability issues,[1][2] during which an unknown individual was able to inject "an image of Muhammad Saeed al-Sahhaf, the legendary Iraqi information minister, onto the e‑banking site (...). This guest star was not chosen at random, but refers to the bank having repeatedly denied more subtly reported vulnerability examples".[3]